Re: Scrappage scheme - price of newish 2nd-hand cars to fall?

Hadn't thought of that. Clearly there's much difficulty in defining the term "hatchback". Perhaps I should have been more careful in my examples to say "re-introduce" (which, to be fair, I did say several times) and not just "introduce". But my examples of what I see as Renault "leading the way" in Euro-mass-market (which surely is the context of the thread, since I don't think even Raygun accused RR or Bentley of producing "shoddy") (and by "leading" I mean others followed) shouldn't have said "introduced" - they should have said (as most did) "re-introduced".

< various snips >

I agree with you on that one. Our R21 was so disappointing it was the last renault we ever bought.

This isn't really about "proof" - it's about our respective views and experience. All I can say is my experience (inc as a fleet manager) is that UK-built cars were noticebly worse than others in the 60's and 70's - and later.

I was waiting for you to say that. It was my first car, and IIRC had separate boot lid and opening rear-windscreen. It was good - but I don't regard that as a hatch back.

If you're talking minis, I covered these is an earlier post.

Have you sat in a 2CV? The bigger citroens, I would argue, don't come into the category of "shoddy" nor of "mass market". IIRC, you introduced the word "shoddy" in this thread and unless you mean _all_cars were shoddy, I think taking it to mean mass-market is totally reasonable.

I was relying on things being taken in the context of the related posts. Unless that's acceptable, the verbosity needed to avoid any disputes would quickly kill off NGs.

I thought they were predominantly 2 dr rag-tops...?

What was it then? Coincidence?

Is a case of wearing blinkers on your part.

[snip]

It seems to be about you making off-the-wall statments that have no foundation in fact.

And since we're comparing to Renaults, my experience and that of everyone I know who owned a Renault were that they were worse any and British built car, and continue to be worse than any British built car. You snipped the list of crap Renaults that I have encountered.

What *you* consider it to be is completely irrelevant in the sense that it's not definitive. I don't consider the R4 to be a hatchback, and it was beaten by the Citroen TA and the 2CV.

No, and we seem to running into the limits of your experience. Triumph never made a Mini. And you're wrong about the Mini being launched "at the same time" as the Renault 4 as you claimed elsewhere. The Mini was launched two years earlier than the Renault 4. The Renault 4 was a first in front wheel drive. It was the first front wheel drive sold by Renault. That's it. The first front wheel drive sold in the UK was an Alvis (1928).

All of these were FWD.

Mini Triumph 1300 Triumph 1500 Austin 1100 Austin 1300 Austin 1800 Austin Maxi Riley Kestrel

Yes I've owned two.

Then (a) you've never owned one and (b) you don't have a clue about what mass market means. *AND* you keep harping on about this *mass market* which you have unilaterally introduced as a qualification.

No, I didn't.

Utter bunk. "Shoddy" does not mean "mass market".

No you're not, you're introducing an extra qualification that had not been made before your attempts to portray Renaults as something other than the badly-built, assembled by pissed communists pieces of tat that they are.

Bullshit.

I don't care what you thought. They were saloons.

Largely, yes. The mass marketing of the turbo was achived by SAAB, not Renault. Turbo-charged Renault road cars followed the market, they did not lead it.

ROFL - your view is definitive, of course.

That doesn't make you right or me wrong.

So how do you define hatchback?

Wow - you don't say...!

Granted - sorry.

Which of these (aside from the mini) post-date the R4?

At least one French producer impresesed you, then.

Yep - I did that all by myself. I'm delighted to be a unilateralist. Saves getting on board those people who refuse to agree with me ... :-)

But you haven't yet convinced me that "shoddy" cars embrace more than "mass market" cars.

Apologies - I didn't recall that correctly after all :-(

I didn't claim it "means" that - but which cars are you claiming are shoddy but not mass-market?

The fact I didn't spell out endless and tedious terms of reference doesn't negate the comments. I like to assume people grasp and hang on to the context.

Your proof? A crystal ball?

You've fooled me... :-)

OK - I accept I always took (wrongly) saloons to be different from convertibles.

After Renault introduced turbos to F1, and made the world understand their potential.

Followed Saab & Volvo, who followed F1.

You'll be saying next that you don't consider the RS01 to be a mass-market car... :-)

In summary, I take most of your specific points on board - but not the generalities nor your conclusion that renaults were mega bad in the 70s. But in terms of an amalgam of some or all of my original examples, I still reckon Renault is (or rather "was") up there as a lot more pioneering than most.

That said, sadly they didn't introduce hub-caps which rotate after you stop, so that the "RR" motif is nicely horizontal. Now that is something the mass-market truly needs.

Blinkers don't stop me seeing clearly the car in front....!! (With apologies to that Japanese upstart)

Ah! Did your fleet have any Datsun or Toyota examples of late 60s early 70s Japanese products ?

:-)))

Sadly, no...!!

Not Fleet but commecial use as Antique dealer, after the shit that was a Ford Cortina MKIII estate my Farther went though Datsun 180B MK1, MK2, and Bluebird 1.8GL Estates. He was so impressed he got a new Bluebird 1.8GL coupe as replacement for his Audi 100S coupe (He had already stopped buying British as personal transport 6 years before thanks to the crap that was called Rover and a Triumph 2000 that snapped it's crank while running in ). When they got to 60K miles, as it was 10K more than his experiece of Brit s**te had taught him any car was capable of, Dad would panic and go get the next one with about

20K on it. I got the 1.8GL estate and coupe in turn, ran the Estate to over 100K and the coupe to 125K miles which at the time seemed incredible.

Yes they rotted. So did UK cars unless you paid for Ziebart. But they didn't eat camshafts and rockers. They started first time every time and didn't have to have a new alternator, starter, cables, battery and still need a push every god damn morning. Nothing ever went wrong. just took them for service at the right time.

Only reason he doesn't still buy Nissan today is that Nissan GB diss-enfranchised his friends at the local dealer when they took over from AFG and he's never forgiven them. (could be a warning to GM in USA re Pontic)